Mary Shelley
Mary started writing Frankenstein aged 18 whilst visiting Lake Geneva with future husband Percy Shelley and poet Lord Byron. The book was published anonymously on 1st January 1818. It received negative critiques due to being written by a woman. In April 1818, a review in The British Critic wrote: “The writer of it is, we understand, a female; this is an aggravation of that which is the prevailing fault of the novel; but if our authoress can forget the gentleness of her sex, it is no reason why we should; and we shall therefore dismiss the novel without further comment.” Frankenstein gained popularity in 1823 when it was adapted into a stage play by Richard Brinsley Peake. The book was published for the first time in Mary’s name later that year.
Available to read: Genres: Horror, Science Fiction, Gothic
“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.” Mary Shelley was born 30th August 1797 in London, England. She was the daughter of feminist philosopher and writer Mary Wollstonecraft. Wollstonecraft was a radical freethinker for her time, and in 1792 published the hugely influential feminist work, A Vindication of the Rights of Women. Mary’s mother died shortly after her birth, but it is clear she had a strong influence on Mary’s writing.
The book’s themes mainly focus on loss and bereavement. The book displays the importance of a maternal figure in childhood, something Mary did not have. It could also represent Mary’s feelings of guilt after losing her first daughter, Clara, who died just two weeks after being born. Mary’s influence on pop culture has been prolific. Many books and films would simply not exist without Frankenstein, such as The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Edward Scissorhands, Avengers: Age of Ultron and Lilo and Stitch, just to name a few. To this day, Frankenstein still sells roughly 40,000 copies every year.